We have more shots fired—oh so many shots—in the feud between ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson—also the ex-ExxonMobil Corp. CEO—and excitable Twitter user and current President Donald Trump. It seems ex-Exxon exec Rex has made the president angry.
Let’s recap before we give you the goods, which you’ve probably already seen elsewhere and rolled your eyes at by now, but it’s Friday and it’s slow and so here we are.
Things started with a report from NBC News, back in October 2017, that Tillerson had dropped a “moron” accusation on his boss.
DT figured it was fake news, although did he? Because he curiously offered a retort just in case: take an IQ test against me you cowardly coward. He said that in an interview, not on Twitter, which I will note I was surprised to find out during the reporting of this story.
Trump kicked his guy to the curb in March, via Twitter, with a cordial-if-a-little-extra, “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service!” But I’m not sure how thankful he was, you know? How can you know?
Anyway, that brings us to the events of last night, when Tilly went in during a conversation with CBS’ Bob Schieffer at a fundraiser in Houston. He said Trump hates to read. But if you like to read, might I suggest this thrilling ditty from the Houston Chronicle:
“So often, the president would say here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it and I would have to say to him, Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,” Tillerson said.
Trump would get very frustrated when they would have those conversations, he said.
“I’d say here’s what we can do,” Tillerson said. “We can go back to Congress and get this law changed. And if that’s what you want to do, there’s nothing wrong with that. I told him I’m ready to go up there and fight the fight, if that’s what you want to do.”
Tillerson said Trump rose to power by tapping into something that the American people felt very strong about and using the tools of the day such as Twitter to do it.
“I will be honest with you, it troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues, that they are satisfied with a 128 characters,” Tillerson told Schieffer.
Tillerson voiced those concerns even further in his conversation.
“I don’t want that to come across as a criticism of him,” Tillerson said. “It’s really a concern that I have about us as Americans and us as a society and us as citizens.”
The news of those comments made the internet rounds today, which meant the world was waiting patiently for the response, and boy oh boy:
Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018
This has been a blog post of tremendous importance. Our holiday party is tonight. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
